The study of the works of Russian thinkers, the witnesses of the events of the Russian revolution, first of all, N. A. Berdyaev, has motivated the authors to consider the revolu- tion as a cultural conflict. The article takes into account the provisions of the modern theory of revolution. Here are outlined the options for conflicts on a cultural basis with the identification of that one which can be correlated with the revolution. Such structural elements of a cultural conflict as its object, goals, parties, objective and subjective images of the conflict are considered.Cultural conflict is the basis of revolution in the sense that not a separate class or group is interested in the changing of the «cultural orientation», but society as a whole, society as a system that requires the restructuring, which should contribute to the expansion and dominance of the culture of quality, spiritual work (in a broad sense, not limited by the activities of the «cultural class»). Cultural conflict essentially is not a class conflict in the classical sense of the term. The main parties to the cultural conflict are strata, groups and individuals who are vitally fas- cinated involved in a society in which self-realization of personalities can take place, and authority giving preference to the governed impersonal majority. This preference is real- ized the more effectively, the more authority shares and supports the worldview inherent in traditional culture.